The Union government and the Planning Commission will take a decision on the new Below Poverty Line (BPL) cap only after a report is submitted by the Parliamentary Committee on the Food Security Bill and the completion of the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). As things stand, divergent views have already surfaced raising a question mark on the fate of the Food Security Bill. Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen said...

The government believes it is more important to be seen to be doing things than to be doing them well. The proposed food security legislation is another example of this tendency. The legislation exemplifies the self-defeating obduracy of bureaucratic modes of thinking. But the debate around it also exemplifies a failure of intellectual argument in India. Our debates often have this character. First, we spend a lot more time arguing...

In 2004, a boy was crushed to death by a vehicle when he was crossing the road in front of a school to fetch water. The school, in the heart of the nation’s capital, did not have drinking water facilities. Seven years later, courtesy the NGO Environmental and Consumer Protection Foundation and the Supreme Court, all Indian states (the last two being Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir) have given...

The Mamata Banerjee government has sought the Supreme Court’s permission to withdraw its Left predecessor’s appeal against a Calcutta High Court order that had described the March 2007 police firing in Nandigram as “unconstitutional” and “wholly unjustified”. If the apex court allows the state’s latest plea, it will pave the way for cases being filed against any erring policeman, officer or government official. The “unconstitutional” tag too will stand, as will the...

How do you quantify happiness in a diverse nation like ours? Growth levels, value-based structural changes, what can affect it? Life is Elsewhere?     Bhutan’s GNH: Based on the Buddhist doctrine of harmony with environment and fellow beings besides material comfort     UNDP Human Development Report: Ranks nations on quality of life—adjusted real income, life expectancy, education etc     World Values Survey: Started in 1995, it explores impact of social and political changes...